What the Canceled Friday the 13th Reboot Was Actually About

For whatever reason, it has been very difficult to get a new Friday the 13th movie made for nearly a decade. A reboot was launched in 2009 and, rather than continue with that, the plan has been to reboot Jason Vorhees yet again, but things just haven't gone well. As such, there is no telling when we're going to see a new Friday the 13th movie. However, Hannibal writer and producer Nick Antosca was working on a version that got close recently and now he has revealed details on his scrapped version.

While speaking to Bloody Disgusting, Nick Antosca detailed what his Friday the 13th movie would have been. It was in the early stages and was only on a first draft, which means a lot of work needed to be done. But the influences seemed to be in line with what could have made for a great slasher flick. Here's what he had to say about what movies would have influenced this new Jason flick.

"The Paramount Friday the 13th movies. Plus Jaws, a little bit. We just wanted to make a classic Jason movie, with kids at camp who get slaughtered, and great kills and some characters you actually enjoy hanging out with til they die. David Bruckner and I talked about how to make a consistent Jason throughout our movie, but nod to the different Jasons. I prefer supernatural Jason, personally. And I loved the imagery of him under the water."

He makes a good point about things being rather inconsistent with the Friday the 13th. Perhaps the most notable inconsistency being the release pattern. There were eight movies featuring Jason released in the 80s. Only a handful have been released in the years since. With so many movies and so much time having passed, the mythology has been really mixed up and inconsistent. According to Nick Antosca, they would have just cherry picked what they wanted to for this reboot.

"We just accepted from the beginning that we would have to pick and choose elements of the mythology to make a coherent one within one movie. It's obviously not consistent over the course of the franchise, but you have a lot to work with. We adjusted the timeline a bit to make sense."

Speaking of the 80s being the premium time for the Friday the 13th franchise, that actually would have played into this reboot. Antosca revealed that the plan was to have this Platinum Dunes produced reboot take place in the 80s and be a period place. Can you think of a better way to bring Jason back?

"To me, that just feels right. That's the Jason movie I want to see. It's the same impulse that fed into 'Stranger Things' and a lot of 80s nostalgia that we now see popping up. It was in the air a few years ago. I'd still love to see a new Friday the 13th set in the '80s. I'm sure there was more character work to do. There always is. The draft that got out there is a first draft, and I only ever had a chance to do one draft. I'm sure we would have kept tweaking the kills too."

This all sounds pretty great. Especially considering how early in the process this was. Certainly better than the found footage idea that had been floating around. So the burning question becomes, what happened? It was only after the failure of Rings that Paramount removed the movie from their release schedule entirely. Here's how Nick Antosca explains it, at least based on what information he was privy to.

"I know Platinum Dunes was ready to go, they were enthusiastic. I heard various things, Paramount changed their mind about the 80's setting, they wanted more mythology. Also, there was some corporate changeover in the ranks there, and the people who were in charge when I was hired were no longer there. The new folks may have wanted to put their own stamp on it. It happens. I was curious to see the version they did make, and I was disappointed when that fell apart too. It shouldn't be that hard to make a Friday the 13th movie."

Indeed, it should absolutely not be this hard to make a Friday the 13th movie. According to this report, the rights to the franchise lapse in January, so Paramount and Platinum Dunes have more or less lost their window of opportunity to make this reboot happen. And it sounds like they may have left a pretty solid version of this movie on the table.